The Ghost Sees All
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: The Purge tag, sort of: It's amazing what you witness when you're dead. (Kevin POV)


**The Ghost Sees All**  
K Hanna Korossy

So, being dead sucked. No surprise there. Or that the Winchesters had gotten him killed. Yeah, kinda saw that coming, too. Maybe not at Sam's hand, but it didn't take being dead to see it wasn't really Sam inside that floppy-haired shell. Not unless Sam had all new burning-your-skull-out powers, not to mention the whole murdering-your-friends thing. But trusting them? Kevin had known it wouldn't end well.

The surprise was in the details. Like, that the Veil was full of lost souls who weren't moving on. Or that his mom didn't seem to be one of them, which was both upsetting and encouraging. Or that Kevin was still somehow tethered to the bunker. Not exactly how he'd imagined spending the afterlife.

Or that he pretty much forgave Dean before his body even stopped smoking. The devastation on the guy's face said he hadn't been kidding when he'd called Kevin family, and that he would have done anything to save him. Not very helpful now, but…Kevin knew he hadn't been the only one screwed by fate. The Winchesters hadn't asked for any of this, either.

Still. Hovering around the bunker as an invisible spirit, watching people he cared about be miserable? It wasn't something he'd have ever put on his to-do list.

It was…really weird seeing Dean get him ready for his pyre. Hunter's burial: Kevin didn't expect to feel anything remotely like pride watching his own funeral, but he'd earned this. If, you know, about fifty years before he'd hoped it would happen, but still. It was cool, in a Viking kinda way.

But it didn't release him from his attachment to the bunker. And witnessing Dean's silent tears while he watched the fire burn down was painful in a whole different way than dying had been.

Then seeing him vow to end Sam, if that was what it took to free him from the rogue angel riding him? That was when it actually sunk in just how rock-bottom Dean was.

He left with Crowley. Just when Kevin had been busy thinking up unseen ways to torture the King of Hell.

Next thing he knew, Sam was back—de-angeled, and looking like Hell—but Dean wasn't. Kevin worried briefly that Dean had died getting Sam back, but no, Sam looked more mad than upset. And Castiel talked with Dean on the phone sometimes when Sam wasn't there. Sam didn't wanna talk to him, didn't want to hear Castiel try to defend him. Kevin was betting Sam hadn't known about his feathered passenger, that Dean had somehow been responsible for that, and Sam was ticked off about it.

But he called out for his brother when the angel was doing some kind of treatment on him—removing the last dregs of the angel? And he paged through Dean's journal when Cas didn't see him. And sometimes pulled up Dean's number on his phone and stared at it a while before putting it away again, or wandered into his room, looking at the pictures, sitting on his bed. Right, Sam didn't miss his brother _at all._ And Kevin wasn't really dead, he was just _living-impaired_.

Then something happened out in the world again—not being able to go outside the bunker's walls was getting really old—and Dean returned with Sam…but things weren't back to normal. Dean secretly checked on his concussed brother, cooked him a couple of his favorites, and had a painful conversation with their sheriff friend Jody about how they were trying, but the guys barely talked to each other. And when they did, Sam said some pretty nasty things.

Who knew the Winchesters were really some soap opera couple? Jeez.

Plus there was this weird red glow coming from Dean's arm now that Kevin couldn't figure out but was pretty sure wasn't good news.

It was when the guys came back from their next hunt that Kevin finally had enough. Sam spouted some more lame arguments about how he wouldn't do anything to save Dean if Dean were dying the same way Sam had—seriously?—and that they weren't really brothers. Yeah, right. Then they went to their rooms and got all choked up in private, both of them. And Sam crept in to check on Dean during the night because Dean had been drugged or something, and Dean looked in on Sam on his way back from the bathroom because Sam had moved rooms to around the corner and he couldn't hear him breathing or whatever during the night anymore, and if something didn't give with those two idiots, Kevin was going to _gouge his own eyes out_ , incorporeal or not. If, uh, they hadn't been burned out already.

So he started practicing making himself visible. Or at least flickering the lights, _something_. He needed to be heard. Because this was boring and frustrating as anything, yeah, but also because…he got it now, in a way he hadn't before.

He'd always known the brothers were heroes. Even when they were being _teenage girls_ , they were smart and moral and sacrificial, and had probably saved the world more times than Kevin would ever know. It was one of the many reasons he had trusted and stayed with them, even when he ended up paying for that. And of course he knew they were close; you only had to be around them thirty seconds to get they were _tight_.

But Dean…he got reckless on his own. Kevin could see it in the careless way he handled the weapons and pounded a punching bag bloody. Without his brother, he didn't care if he lived or died. And for all his harsh words, Sam caved each time his brother was out of sight, shoulders sagging, movements aimless, eyes red and expression all busted-up and lost. They could be fierce and effective by themselves, sure. But it was together, backing and building each other up, feeding off each other's feelings— _love_ —that they became the unstoppable, legendary, kick-ass freakin' _Winchesters_.

Dean wandered into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and sat staring moodily at it.

Kevin sighed, body or no. And went back to work trying to turn the coffeepot on.

 **The End**


End file.
